Can I get good photos with a point & shoot camera? | Ben Chapman Photos
Ok I'll admit it; I'm a photography geek.
I eat, sleep, repeat photography stuff all day long; magazines, you tube, instagram, books and I haven't yet mentioned all of my cameras!
As a King's Lynn Wedding Photographer I love my camera's to be fast at focusing, great in low light and ready to work in all conditions.
And my lenses need to help me get those dreamy out of focus backgrounds.
But whilst stuck at home, clearing out the cupboards and doing a general tidy up and inventory check (it's good to get rid of stuff every now and then) I found an old point & shoot camera that Laura bought easily 10 years ago.
And I wondered........Could I do a photoshoot with a point & shoot camera?
And more specifically can I get good photos with a point & shoot camera?
Photos that a client would be happy with?
The camera in question is a Fujifilm Finepix JV110.
It's a tiny little thing with pretty much no manual controls, it's point & shoot!
I put a post out on my Facebook asking if anyone would be interested in my little cheap camera challenge; after all this camera is on eBay for £5-10 and I'm sure they will never sell at that price!
And I got a number of responses and messages saying they're up for it.
Honestly I was a little worried.....can I really use a cheap camera for a photoshoot?
The date was set and the photoshoot was booked.
Bex, Rich and Grace all met me in the park in Sutton Bridge for a socially distanced photoshoot in the snow.
Not only did I have a cheap camera but I also had to battle the cold, I think it was -1'c that Saturday morning.
How was the little point & shoot going to cope with the bright snow on the ground?
It was quite difficult to see how good each photo was going to be using the rear LCD on the camera; it's a low quality screen and has no exposure warnings to help me keep detail in the white snow.
So I had to just trust my judgement and use the 2 adjustable settings that I could find in the menu;
ISO - On this little thing even the lowest sensitivity was very noisy! So my only option was to keep it as low as possible.
Exposure compensation - I could tell the camera to make the photo lighter or darker but I had no control on how the camera would do this.
Much to my annoyance because it often chose a shutter speed that was too slow which would end up with blurry photos arghhhhhh!!!!
Who said this cheap camera challenge was a good idea?!!!!!!
So I had to hold the camera steady, trust it's very slow focus and hope that by making the photo darker I was keeping the detail in the snow.
Fingers crossed!
And.........well......... I like the photos! No..........I love the photos!
With a camera with no fancy tricks that's worth £1000's less than my 'proper' cameras, I still captured the moments & the memories for Bex, Rich & Grace.
Yeah the quality is technically a bit naff but a happy memory captured is better than a missed moment.
A massive thank you definitely goes out to Bex, Rich & Grace for trusting me and my ability on that cold Saturday morning.
I massively enjoyed it, even though I couldn't feel my fingers by the end of the shoot!
Coming soon, I'm going to do more cheap camera challenges with phones, film, old lenses and any other cameras that I can find or borrow, so keep checking in for a new blog post.
If you're looking for a King's Lynn Wedding Photographer with the skills to pay the bills then send me a message and let's chat about your plans.
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